Thursday, March 20, 2014

Making Your Own Digital Designs (and Binder Covers) is Easier than You Think!

Have you ever looked at another teacher’s organized binders
(in person or online) and thought, “they must be so creative- their stuff
always looks put together and so cute!”

Some of you know that a lot of people purchase these items
on Teachers Pay Teachers, Teacher’s Notebook, or another site that sells
digital items. It is also possible to
find some items for free on these sites or directly on teacher blogs, just like
mine.

A lot of these digital goodies are designed using Photoshop
and other Adobe design programs.
Although these are wonderful (and I do own some Adobe programs,
including Photoshop myself), they are also extremely expensive. Most of the creating I do is done in Photoshop, but occasionally I do dabble with Microsoft Word. :)

Today, I’d like to show you how to create your own really
cute, customized binders, labels, etc. for a relatively low cost- and best of
all, it will be just what YOU want, not what someone else has designed.

Microsoft Word is a very versatile program- you can do SO
many things with it! At first it may be
weird to use it to design graphic items if all you’ve ever done is type on it-
but once you get used to it, you will find your freedom and be able to create
some amazing things!

In today’s post, I’d like to show you how to create an easy
binder cover.

Creating a Custom Binder Cover:

1. First, you will
need a digital paper. Think of it as a
cute scrapbooking paper for your page.
You can Google Free Digital Papers to find some to download, go to TPT
and do the same, or your can download the papers from my store for free
today.

2. Open up a blank
Word Document. Go to Insert, then
Picture (from file). Find wherever you
just saved the digital paper and click “open.”

3. You should now see
the digital paper in the middle of your Word Document. It should look something like this:

4. This is
important: make sure your digital paper
is highlighted (the dots are on the corners of it), and then find your Picture
Tools. You should see a picture of a dog
with some lines through it. Click on that-
a drop-down box should pop up. Now click
“in front of text.” This will allow you
to move and enlarge the paper.

5. Next, drag the
corners of your digital paper until it fills all of the white part of your
paper. It should look like this:

6. At this point, to
create something cute, but basic, go to your AutoShapes (under the Insert
tab). Under Basic Shapes, choose the
“sticker” you’d like to put your title on.
I usually opt for the rounded square- kinda classy, but not crazy and
not boring. Drag that shape onto the
middle of the page. Move it around to
wherever you like it. Here’s what mine
looks like:

7. Next, you can play
with the border line of the sticker you just put down and even the middle of
the sticker color. You can also layer
another sticker on the page to give you some depth. Here are some ideas:

The Top Left corner I just increased the border
thickness. The one below it I changed
the border color and the fill color. For
the two on the right, I actually created another sticker and put it on top of
the other sticker already there. Then I
changed the fill and border colors of each.
Pick whichever style you like best.

8. To add a title to
the cover, click “Insert” then “Text Box.”
Type in your text. You may then need
to make the Text box have “no fill” and the border have “no fill” as well. Play around with the text until you have it
to your liking and drag it into the exact center of the sticker box. Here’s what my final binder cover looks
like:

10. Print it out in
color, and you’re ready to go!

Note: If you’re like
me and have to have a matching spine label to go with it, no problem, just
repeat the process, but this time, turn the new document to “landscape” and
your paper will be read for the spine label.
Just remember that you will need to make it very thin. Here is my example below:

I just used the green dot on the top of the image to rotate
it around, then used the cropping tool to crop the paper image.

You can use this same technique to create anything! Hope this gives you lots of new ideas and
inspiration! Happy creating! J

PS- I have lots of fun papers in my Teachers Pay Teachers
Store- check them out!